POTSDAM  Members of the Clarkson University Golden Knights mens hockey team lent a helping hand last week at Lawrence Avenue Elementary School to prepare the courtyard for spring planting.

All the fourth-grade students have taken part in this as an Earth Day project, said Joanne L. McCormick, a fourth-grade teacher at the school who oversees the buildings gardens. The kids are having a ball.

Students working outdoors typically enjoy themselves, but, Ms. McCormick said, having the hockey players help made this years project extra special.

A lot of the kids follow Clarkson hockey, she said. We had a little girl on Tuesday who could name the entire lineup. The guys were impressed.

Sam Labrecque, a sophomore defenseman from Montreal, said each of the players was given a team of students.

I started with five kids and ended up with 20, he said. They just kept coming.

Its really a great project, he said. I enjoyed working with the kids and seeing them out here having fun.

Ms. McCormick, who co-teaches with Angelique Santimaw, said while the fourth grade takes the lead with the garden project, it is open to all grade levels.

Students from the fourth-grade classes taught by Emily McCabe, Brenda Martin and Rena Caruso and Judy Butler-Daggett participated in cleaning up the courtyard and preparing the planting beds.

While the courtyard houses several garden areas, Ms. McCormick said, thats not its only use.

Some classes come here for relaxation and reading, some use it for game play, some use it just to enjoy the outdoors and some use it for a learning experience, she said.

Ms. McCormick said her students are reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

We work in the courtyard and use that to correlate experiences detailed in the book, she said.

Ms. McCormick, who also teaches summer school, said thats one of the main reasons she takes the lead on the garden project.

Im here all summer, so we continue with garden project then, she said. We do a lot with the garden and then in the fall we harvest it. Well eat some of the vegetables in our classroom, and we have kids take them home, too.